


Elusive Ghosts

by kiss_me_cassie



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Loss of Parent(s), Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-11
Updated: 2008-07-11
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiss_me_cassie/pseuds/kiss_me_cassie
Summary: In the years following her mother’s death, Hera looks for answers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Ron D. Moore and others, not me  
> Summary: In the years following her mother’s death, Hera looks for answers.
> 
> Notes: More thanks than I can express to phdelicious, who was willing to look this over and helped make it better. (And who also taught me that a semi-colon is more precious than a comma. ;))

Sometimes, when she needs the reassurance and comfort of a mother’s love, she’ll seek out the Eight with her mother’s memories.

“She would have done anything for you, including die.”

Hera doesn’t doubt this. She knows that at one point - when she was a very small child - her mother did die for her, rescuing her from the Cylons and bringing her back to the human half of her family. But knowing that doesn’t tell her what she really wants to know. Did her mother always love her so fiercely? Even when she was a willful and petulant child of ten? Even when she accused her of being a robot and told her that she hated her?

The Eight can’t tell her; she doesn’t share those memories. Hera can only guess at how her mother felt.

~

Occasionally, she’ll talk to Six. But this Six is much different than the Six she remembers from her dreams. She never tells Hera much.

“She chose a side and she stuck with it,” is about all she’ll ever offer. 

Hera knows this is something to be proud of: her mother’s loyalty to humanity and her unwavering belief in them, but it still doesn’t answer all her questions. How did Athena feel about being a lone Cylon amongst so many humans? Was she conflicted about raising a hybrid child? Did she sometimes wonder what would have happened to her if Helo hadn't fallen in love with her?

Not even this Six knows.

~

Every once in a while, she’ll try to talk to Starbuck, but Starbuck - who’s never been very good with kids and is even less so with teenagers – doesn't know the answers to her questions either. She admired Athena, both for her dedication to the fleet and her dedication to her family. She considered her a friend.

“She was a damned good Raptor pilot.”

Hera wants more. Was her mother disappointed that Hera’s love of engineering was greater than her love of flying? Was she sad when her daughter chose not to follow in her footsteps? 

Starbuck just shakes her head and takes another puff on her cigar.

~

She tries to talk to her father all the time, but the words never come. There is too much there, just below the surface, for her to feel comfortable asking him anything so painful.

She knows he loved her mother deeply, that he was willing to bear the scorn of his fellow pilots because of her, that he still feels guilt for her death even though he was in no way involved. She knows that it was only with the help of Starbuck - who frequently appeared at their quarters in the weeks following the accident with a bottle of Ambrosia, a deck of cards and a devilish grin – that her father began to come to terms with her mother’s death.

What she doesn’t know is how her parents' love managed to overcome science to create a child, how her mother felt about the risks they took or how she envisioned the future.

Her father might know the answers. On the other hand, maybe only her mother knew them and even her father is left wondering.

Hera is too scared to find out.

~

She’s only spoken to D’eanna once. 

“She created you,” she says with such awe and reverence that Hera recoils when D'eanna tries to touch her. 

She wants to shout and yell. My mother did more than just give birth to me. She deserves recognition for everything that she was and not just that. 

Besides, Hera is no longer the only one, the savior of these two races. There is Nick, and now Ander's young son. The future doesn’t rest on her shoulders alone.

She likes to think her mother was happy about that.

~

She visits her mother frequently, or at least the likeness of her which is pinned to the wall full of photos. 

Would she be proud of Hera? Would she be hopeful for this brave new world they are all trying to create?

The photo never answers, not that Hera expects it to. And maybe she doesn’t need the answers so much anymore. Athena was her mother; she loved her daughter and her husband deeply. She believed in mankind and the nobility of their quest. In the end, she even believed that humans and Cylons could co-exist. 

Hera takes a hip flask from her back pocket – a gift from Starbuck on the occasion of her eighteenth birthday – and raises it to her lips, a silent toast to her mother on the anniversary of her death.

She turns to her father, hands him the flask, leans her head against his shoulder.

"She was a good woman," her father says. 

A good woman. She thinks that maybe that says all she needs to know after all.


End file.
